Dean Kamen wrestles with decision: should he quit the Segway?

[Kims Robot]

I read this article before the one that Jane posted, but somehow pulled the same thing out of it (assuming that the media misinterpreted what he said). If you read closer to what is exactly quoted, it seems the exact message he is trying to get across is about the life of an inventor/engineer.

I love the points that Dean makes, and its probably why I still listen to every word of his speeches even after 14 years of them! It seems more and more these days, kids are afraid to try ANYTHING that they might fail at, and are afraid to fail. Over and over again I try and stress to my kids that "its ok to fail, as long as you try". The only failures that they know disappoint me are the times that they dont try at all. I loved the commercial that the guy who invented the Dyson vacuum made... something like "I failed 499 times when trying to make this vacuum, the 500th time I succeeded". Im afraid for our next generation, that we wont end up with many revolutions, that they wont have the inventors that we need... because so many kids are afraid to fail. I think it takes something like FIRST or even just a good teacher to let kids know its ok, Invention is hard, Engineering is hard, Math is hard (not to quote that sad Barbie Doll)... if life were easy, we would all be living the fat happy lives of the useless people in Wall-E.